Representing Requirements of Construction from an IFC Model

Abstract

This paper presents a generalized, flexible and formal framework for representing various requirements to support the needs of the construction process using the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) model specification. These are termed construction requirements. The importance of considering construction requirements as a representation of construction knowledge within the context of construction planning and scheduling will be discussed, allowing readers to gain an understanding of the applicability of construction requirements. An ontological model for describing these construction requirements will be proposed in this paper, which will aid in formulating a uniform representation schema for construction requirements. This model will define the attributes of the construction requirements ontology from the perspectives of spatial, temporal and ordinal characteristics. From these attributes, various construction requirements may be represented as construction requirement entities. These construction requirement entities demonstrate how the functional and non-functional characteristics of a building element system may be captured for constructability analysis. This paper concludes by explaining how the construction requirements may be extended to represent construction methods, and underlines its applicability to automated constructability analysis, as well as automatic schedule generation. INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW OF REQUIREMENTS MODELLING Construction Requirements are the capabilities and conditions which the construction process system and the in-progress facility product must conform to (Song and Chua 2006). In other words, construction requirements represent the key pre-conditions for construction (Chua and Yeoh 2011). This then forms the basis for representing construction knowledge; the knowledge embedded within the construction requirements drive the planning process by providing a key tool for constructability analysis of a construction project. Despite the aforementioned importance of construction requirements, little attention has been accorded to the impact of construction requirements on project schedules through associated schedule (temporal) constraints. This is largely due to a 331 COMPUTING IN CIVIL AND BUILDING ENGINEERING ©ASCE 2014